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« on: December 03, 2004, 10:24:17 AM »
For those who do (or do not) know, a splinter of the NS/LM community have set up a clan on pacific frostwolf called "Errant Light". We have been having a whole lot of fun, in fact. Playing together with people you enjoy being around is one of the best MMO experiences you can have. This is just the first tale of one of these misadventures.
Today, our local resident group, consisting of yours truly, toothy, simms, and Injury (as the sexy female Centrai) decided to go to Stranglethorn Vale. We had just finished up an... intresting run in Super Underground Gnome City and wanted a change of pace. Our target? Booty bay. A neutral pirate town on the very southern tip of the eastern continent run by goblins and swashbucklers. Stranglethorn itself was fairly dangerous. It is designed as an area for people just slightly stronger then our biggest member at that time (Injury). Therefore, while we were able to kill some enemies near the start, eventually we had to do more fleeing then fighting and ended up at Booty Bay. After exploring around, checking the shops, and taking in the sights, we got down to business. First, a quest was completed, the primary reason we were there. Secondly, we got the route for the Gryphon - or as Scythe likes to call them, "Flappy Flaps" . Thirdly, we noticed there was indeed a boat service to this place. At this point, most would assume we would take the gryphon and go, but... this is when it started falling apart.
Someone (at this time, I do not clearly remeber, I believe it was simms) suggested we take the boat to Ratchet. Now, Ratchet is also neutral, but is smack dab in the Barrens, which is horde terriitory. I questioned everyone else's sanity, but they seemed to agree with the idea. Then, I made my mistake - and stated that Ratchet was in fact neutral and we would be safe there. After sparing one very scared looking level 18 troll who was apparently sightseeing, we boarded the boat with her and made our way over the Great Sea (and a loading screen) to Kalimdor - and Ratchet.
When we got there, we noticed the large numbers of Horde people here. The Troll on the boat instantly fled, and we never saw her again. The rest of us filed out into a rather large group of Horde players to explore the town. However, as Centari and Toothy disappeared into the crowd, I noticed somthing. Some of the horde players were now becoming PvP enabled. This was horde territory, so the horde would have to either manually activate PvP or hit us before we could attack them, and I use hit loosely - as the barrens were a level 10-20 area, and we were 25-32 at the time.
Then, one PvP enabled warrior stepped forward and started smacking me with his sword. No guards tried to stop him. At this point, I realised that the guards here did NOT prevent violence, and that we were in a place, with 4 mid-level alliance players versus about 30 horde. Needless to say, the voicecom was colorful, and the boat had left by this point. So it was back to the docks. The warrior continuted trying to hurt me, and mostly failing. I quickly followed with a /laugh, and when that didn't phase him, I stunned him with a gouge, then did an artful backstab followed by a short flurry of attacks, easly draining about half his health, making him back off. By this time, the horde had realised that they could actually attack us, and the other members of our group were pushing back through the crowd to the docks. So here we were. Four members of errant light at one end, the horde of horde on the other, and a small empty area inbetween. Occasionally, someone got the courage to break yellow and attack us, which we instantly stopped by killing the hell out of them and stepping back. At one point, another alliance member stumbled through the crowd, and joined us at the end, firing shots into the mass with his rifle. A level 31 warlock sent his voidwalker after us. A few well-placed fireballs sent him back, but the voidwalker needed more then the average amount of punishment to put him away. After this, the boat was still done, so we did the only possible thing we could do in this situation.
We started dancing.
I'm sure you can imagine this much better then I can put it into words, so I'll leave it at that. Four clan-members which are level ?? to a bunch of horde newbies dancing at the end of the dock, and intimidating them so severly that they just stand there and stare at us is somthing to remember.
Eventually, the boat came. But as we boarded, a small number (about 7) of the horde decided for one final brave charge, and boarded with us. This was a little hairy. They used some teamwork, and almost killed a few people - until Centari spammed AoEs and put them in their places. And then the remainder started running off, throwing them from the ship before it passed the line that would load them into booty bay. And then we were back. Two Rogues, a Hunter, a Mage, and one very confused guy with a blunderbuss. No one died at all.
Of course, I was the one who got yelled at, as per usual. However, the experience was unforgetable, as one might expect.
I just wonder what happened to their corpses!